


The Dark

by Darwin_xf



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-27 05:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15679146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darwin_xf/pseuds/Darwin_xf
Summary: Scully’s keeping secrets. And Mulder, he doesn’t like it.





	1. Chapter 1

“What are you doing here, Mulder? It’s Friday night. It’s late. Go home.”

“I don’t know,” he said, closing the door behind him, leaning back against it. “Checking on you.”

He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to steady the room. Which, at the moment -- like everything else -- was pitching and spinning. The pinball machine of his life, stuck on tilt. She hadn’t exactly invited him in. She’d retreated already to her kitchen.

“Making sure I’m home? Not getting more ink? Not entertaining another menacing stranger?” She looked at him cooly. When had she perfected that sleety stare? Scully.

“No,” he said, ducking and shaking his head. He hiccuped. He showed up at her apartment shitfaced and actually -- loitering in her living room -- hiccuped. He couldn’t even stand himself, for being such a walking cliche.

“Scully. Come on. You weren’t at work. You didn’t answer your phone. You’re still banged up. I was worried...”

“Were you more worried before you went to the bar? Or after?” She was pouring a glass of water. For herself.

”Both,” he said absently. “My brain is… my brain is broken, Scully.” He steadied himself, ambled to her desk. He let his fingers play over a leatherbound journal laying open. Scully’s precise script. The words blurred when he squinted at them. “You broke my brain,” he whispered. “Please.”

“Please what?”

She’d been at the doctor. On Tuesday, she’d go back to receive the results of the imaging and blood work. She’d already, however, read the look on the face of the X-ray tech. Her brain was quite possibly broken, too. Or nearly so. She wouldn’t be sharing that with him. Not on this night, anyway.

He picked up her journal.

“Don’t fucking touch what isn’t yours,” she said, closing the distance between them and pressing the book closed. She placed it back on her desk.

“Fine,” he said, grabbing her wrist. “Good guideline. Why didn’t you tell that to Jerse?”

Oh, he shouldn’t have come. He could imagine he looked monsterous to her, beady eyed and desperate with his tie pulled loose and his dragon breath. His shirt stained under his arms. His jacket… missing? Had he left it at the bar? Or worse, in the taxi? Sour gut juice climbed toward the back of his throat.

“Get out.” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She was scrubbed, lotioned, and pajamaed. Ready for bed. He was still holding her wrist. He leaned in. She smelled like clean sheets and starlight and everything good.

“Scully,” he croaked, letting her go and slouching into her desk chair. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Because I don’t want to,” she said, sinking into her sofa. “I don’t want to talk to you, Mulder. I don’t want to boo hoo and tell you how Ed knocked me around. I don’t want to detail what happened before that, for your or anyone else. I don’t want to know where you went on your vacation. I don’t want to see you on the weekend. I’m sorry nobody’s ever told you ‘no’ before. But that’s the deal.”

“Hah!”

“Hah?”

“Yeah. Hah! Something’s not right here, Scully,” he said, wagging his finger at her. He sounded drunk. He was drunk. He didn’t care. “I can feel it. With you. I know it. And I’m not leaving till you tell me what it is.” He crossed his arms.

“Well I’m going to bed. Go home, Mulder. I’ll see you Monday.”

“I’m coming too, then” he said. “I’m coming to bed with you. Maybe I’ll even carry you there.”

“You are, huh?” she said, standing up.

“I am,” he said, nodding. “If that what it takes. For you to talk to me.”

Hah is right. If she thought he was here to fuck her she’d probably let him stay. Mulder.

“Get this straight, Mulder. If you remember nothing else about this encounter, remember this: You’re not taking me to bed. Ever.”

“Obviously that’s your call,” he said, sniffing.

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself...” she said.

She snapped off the lights and left him sitting in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

She fell asleep in seconds, and woke up minutes or hours later to an infernal clattering coming from the direction of her bathroom. Her dozens of bottles and tubes of lotions and potions cascading from the shelves into the castiron tub. Then, a snapping noise.

Either Mulder had left behind an entire litter of kittens before leaving, or he was still here. Perhaps even trying to take a shower? She didn’t care which, her exhaustion so bone deep and convincing. Sleep claimed her again before she could give it another thought.

She came to again sometime later, conscious of the unfamiliar sensation of another body in her bed with her.

Not kittens, then.

She rolled over and Mulder lay on top of her covers. In a shaft of light spilling in from the hall she could see he was staring at the ceiling. And wearing her lavender pointelle bathrobe. Which barely closed, the belt cinched in a sloppy knot around his middle. The sleeves came up to his elbows.

She was surprised, and — considering that she’d challenged him like she had (unfairly, really) — a little impressed. Then there was a third feeling, a warmth that flickered low in her gut and spread like spilled wax from a toppled candle. She rolled toward him and sighed.

“Why are you here, Mulder? You should be home sleeping it off.”

“Well. I’m glad you asked. Sitting in the dark out there, I convinced myself I was going to barge in here and fuck you so hard you’d forget you ever met that asshole.”

“Who?” she said.

“Ah, Jerse? Ed Jerse? From Philadelphia? God, Scully, with how many budding psychopaths have you engaged in bruising fornication lately?”

She was smiling slyly at him.

“Ahhhhh,” he said, pointing his finger at her, grinning sheepishly. “I see what you did there. You’re taking advantage of me because I’m still a little drunk.” He was still smiling, shaking his head at the ceiling.

“Not as of yet,” she said, throwing the covers off and getting out of bed. “But you should probably get going.”

“I’m not drunk anymore. Not really. Wait, Scully. Where are you going?”

“The bathroom? My bathroom? In my apartment?” She intended, before deciding on her next move, to survey the damage.

“Uhhhhh,” he said, getting up too, crossing quickly to stand in front of the bathroom door, which was firmly closed, “there was a mishap.”

“A mishap?” she said, arching her neck languidly to look into his eyes.

“Yeah, well, see, when I decided what I decided out there…”

“And we’re putting that idea aside now...” She was nodding at him.

“Yes,” he said, “We are. We did. It wasn’t a good idea. Anyway, I got into your bed, and realized that I reeked of cigarettes and sweat and tequila. Pretty much I smelled like the floor of the bar.”

“Uh huh,” she said.

“So I went to wash up, and in the process... Well, you know how they say you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs?”

“You know what?” she said. “Let’s forget it.” She didn’t want to deal with a mess right now. Besides Mulder himself.

“I’m gonna use the half bath out here. You should get dressed and go home. Though, I think I’ve neglected to tell you,” she plucked at the lace trimmed lapel of her bathrobe, “you look very pretty.”

She was suddenly glad her boring terrycloth robe was in the hamper, looking down at his knobby dark man knees popping out under the hem.

“Thanks,” he said. “My clothes were, ah, involved in the…”

“Mishap?” she supplied.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s fine. They’re just wet. Mostly.”

She found him on her sofa. He’d pulled on his pants and his shoes were on the floor by his feet. His other clothes were in a humid ball on her coffee table. He was holding his head.

“Let me get you a plastic bag for those. And I think I have a t-shirt of yours around here somewhere.”

One she’d borrowed months before after getting caught in a downpour on her way to his place. She neglected to mention she’d worn it to bed for a week before she given in and laundered it.

“Hang on Scully. Sit for a minute.” He pulled her down next to him.

“Mulder what is this? What are you doing here, really? Are you jealous? Of Jerse?

“No.” he said, shaking his head. “Not exactly. I’m just fucked up about it, Scully. That’s the truth. I’m shocked and pissed and… I don’t know, turned on?”

“Huh,” she said.

“I spend half my time wanting to punch a hole in the a wall picturing Jerse’s sniveling whitebread face, the other half thinking I’m about to come in my pants.”

“Oh,” she said.

“The other half of the time I’m wanting to rail at you for being so irresponsible. I mean, Scully, you could have been killed. Or caught a disease…”

She almost laughed bitterly then, right in his face.

But he was so ernest next to her, bare chested and bewildered and holding her hand. It wasn’t about him, but that didn’t mean his pain wasn’t real. He’d been a dick, supercilious and condescending before she left for Philly. But he’d done his penance.

And she loved him. There was that, pushing up through the muck and mire like a freshwater spring.

“I was careful,” she said.

He scoffed.

“Well, we used condoms, anyway.”

He winced. She right away regretted her use of the plural. It’s true sometimes what they say, about the truth hurting.

“That's three halves, Mulder,” she said to distract him.

“So it is. See?”

“Your brain is broken.”

“You’re all I think about,” he whispered. He leaned in to kiss her.

She pressed her palms into his naked chest and pushed, putting some space between them. He wasn’t making this easy.

“It’ll pass,” she said. “This isn’t real, Mulder.”

“It is real.”

“I’m all you think about because I’m acting uncharacteristically. It puzzles you. and if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you can’t resist a puzzle. You sink your teeth in and lock your jaw until you’ve solved it.”

“Scully, no…”

“Soon enough,” she interrupted him, “we’ll be back at work. And we’ll slip into our comfortable routines. And things will go back to normal. And you’ll move on to the next puzzle.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head firmly.

“I mean, what if your fish were, piece by piece, erecting a tiny version of Stonehenge on the floor of their aquarium when you slept each night? One itty bitty sarsen at a time...”

  
“What?”

“Tell me you wouldn’t be home right now chugging coffee and staring into the tank instead of here ogling me. Trying to catch them in the act?”

“Well,” he said, “that is an arresting image. I admit I’d be curious…”

“See? I know you,” she said, standing up.

“Wait a second… he said, shaking his head hard. “You tricked me again. What are we even talking about?”

He stood up too.

She tried to step away but he snatched her elbow and held it.

“You've got all the answers, Scully.” His voice was soft, the light low. “You think this is some kind of schoolboy crush. That once you call me out on what a flake I am I’ll slink on home to stare moronically at my fish tank. You think I’ll be relieved, grateful you’re letting me off the hook.”

“Mulder, I...”

“Let me tell you what I know. I know there’s something going on with you. Beyond this jackpot in Philadelphia. And I know you’re scared. You don’t need to tell me anything ever, and I was wrong to think you did. You don’t owe me that. But I know as long as I’ve got breath in my lungs, whatever it is, you’re not alone with it. Not even if you want to be. Because what happens to you happens to me too.”

She was stunned into silence, her mouth agape, looking uncomprehendingly at him. Not unlike one of his fish.

He leaned in to whisper. “How many times did you fuck him, Scully?” His breath tickled the tiny cilia in her ear. “Before he changed the music and bounced your skull off the door jamb?”

“None of your business,” she said miserably.

“It is, though. It isn’t that I’m jealous, so much. It’s just that... you’re mine.”

“Oh, Mulder…”

“Tell me I’m wrong. That’s all you need to do to get rid of me. Tell me you’re not mine.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again. She couldn’t.

His hand felt hot on her arm. He’d loosened his grip and was caressing her elbow with his fingertips. She cast her eyes to the floor.

“Allow me, then, to tell you that you’re wrong.”

He picked up her hand and sandwiched it between his two hands. He brought it to his lips and kissed each of her battered knuckles.

“Because I’m not never going to take you to bed, Scully. Not on your life. As a matter of fact, I’m going to take you to bed right now.”


	3. Chapter 3

He was heavy on top of her, the full weight of him affixing her to the mattress as his bristled chin scoured her neck. First he’d kissed all her numerous and various scrapes and bumps as he’d eased her out of her pajamas. But this is what she had been after, and it felt good to be pressed by him, immobilized beneath his solid body except for her hands, which were charting the topography and texture of his naked back. 

His tongue was sweet and muscular against hers, sliding past her lips, teasing and delving into the dark of her mouth. She opened to him, powering down her frontal lobe and unhinging her jaw to take him deeper, then her hips. 

When he pushed into her, bright prismatic pinwheels flashed and swirled against the backs of her eyelids. The pain was good; she wanted to be annihilated. It gave way gradually to a liquid looseness, good too. She kneaded his ass and bit into his shoulder as he moved in her in the night. 

A short while later, she rolled briskly out from beneath him, onto her stomach.

“Really, Mulder? Without even asking? Are you kidding me?”

“I’m sorry.” He was still breathing hard, his eyes flashing concern. 

“Jesus. What were you thinking?” Her hands came up to veil her face. 

“I guess... I assumed, ah, you were on something?” He had flipped onto his back and he tucked the sheets up protectively under his chin. 

“You guess you assumed? You know as well as I do I haven’t had a real date in years.”

“Do I?” He was legitimately confused. 

“Aw Christ. Maybe not. But I don’t appreciate the inference, Mulder.”

“I wasn’t making inferences. I promise, Scully, I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking at all. And... it’s been a while. And after I drink I don’t have the same control. God, I’m an ass.” 

“No argument here,” she said, pushing up and getting out of bed. She picked up her bathrobe he’d left at the foot of the bed, only to discover a large rent in the fabric at the shoulder socket. 

“Mulder!” She said, plunging her hand through the gaping hole at the seam. 

“Sorry,” he said covering his head with a pillow. “I’ll get you a new one.”

“Thanks,” she said crisply. She had pulled on her totaled bathrobe and was walking away. 

“Wait, Scully. Where are you going?” His anxiety ramped up to full blown panic. 

She pushed into her bathroom, switching on the light and closing the door behind her. He cringed and curled fetally in the bed, expecting her to come roaring out, bolts shooting from her eyes. 

For a full minute he heard nothing. 

“Scully?” he offered, tentatively. “You okay?”

Nothing. 

He waited another few minutes before approaching the bathroom door, dragging the top sheet from the bed and cinching it around his waist. It trailed behind him like a train.

He knocked, saying her name. When she didn’t answer, he pushed in and craned his neck around the door. 

She sat with her back braced against the claw foot tub. Which was heaped with her belongings he’d knocked down when attempting to shower earlier. A dozen or so cracked or shattered glass bottles and candle holders were on the tub floor, some oozing oils or goo which trickled slowly toward the drain. There were also a half dozen sodden towels. The the shower curtain had been partially torn from its grommets and hung limply from a dislodged curtain rod. The air smelled of camomile and coconut. Her hands in her lap held a white washcloth spotted with fresh blood.

“Scully? You okay? Did I do that?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. 

He sighed in relief.

“I’m sorry about the mess,” he said, sliding down the wall to sit opposite her. “I slipped getting out of the shower. And I grabbed at the shelves and the curtain in a futile attempt to keep from going down. I mopped up the water, but I’ll take care of the rest tomorrow. I didn’t want to wake you…”

“It’s okay,” she said. He looked her in the face for the first time. There was a red smudge on her upper lip.

“Bloody nose?”

“Yeah,” she said, averting her eyes. “I get them sometimes.” He thought he might have noticed that in four years, with the kinds of hours they put in side by side. He held that thought back. She tossed the washcloth into the sink.

“I’m sorry, Scully.” 

“For what?” she said.

“Really, there’s so much to choose from,” he said, shaking his head ruefully.

She nodded. They’d been so close minutes before, when she’d been beneath him, sharing the same close pocket of air, perfectly synchronized. Now she seemed so far away. Not regretful, not embarrassed. Not even angry, despite having multiple instances of just cause.

“For all of it. For barging in here and messing up your evening. For destroying your bathroom and shredding your bathrobe.” She smirked. He was stone cold sober now. “But mostly for what happened in bed,” 

She nodded. He still couldn’t put his finger on her state of mind.

“I should have asked about protection. But my failure to do so doesn’t have to do with my... opinion of you. It was, like, fifteen percent booze, twenty-seven percent me being a macho asshole, and fifty-eight percent how actually unbelievably good you felt.”

“I see. Thanks for clearing that up. We seem to have fixed your brain.” 

He nodded, smiling.

“It’s just... It’s not a good time. It’s a particularly bad time. For a pregnancy.”

“Yeah, I understand that.” 

She looked at him skeptically. The idea of navigating a pregnancy and cancer treatment simultaneously was more than she could even allow into her consciousness at the moment. 

“Is the timing bad, with your cycle? Or whatever?”

“My cycle has been erratic since… for a while now. Any woman can ovulate at any time, Mulder. And therefore get pregnant whenever she has intercourse.”

He was holding his heavy skull in his hands. “I swear to God, Scully, I know I can be a selfish son of a bitch, but I didn’t come over here to ruin your life tonight.”

“I know. It wasn’t all your fault anyway,” she said.

“No?”

“No. I could just as easily have brought it up. Sooner. Part of me must not have wanted to.”

“Which part might that be?” He stretched out his legs next to hers. 

“The oldest part. The lower brain that grabs the reigns and cuts the cerebral cortex out of the loop. The atvastic part that lives only to masticate and propagate.”

“Very romantic. Since when do you subscribe to theories of biological determinism, Scully? Surely you don’t believe our most rudimentary drives alone dictate our behavior.”

“No. I suppose I don’t.”

“If that were true, I would have tried to knock you up ages ago, for example.”

She ducked her chin and smiled. “It's most likely fine, Mulder. The chances of pregnancy after one encounter are slim.”

“Hey,” he said, tapping her hip with his toe. “Just FYI, I’ve been tested for all the usual suspects since I last had sex. Which as I mentioned was quite a while ago. So you don’t have to worry about catching anything.”

“Thanks. That’s good to know.”

“And if you do get pregnant, I’ll be here. Whatever you decide to do about it. I know you’re Catholic. If you decide to have it…”

“Mulder, there isn’t going to be any baby.”

“Okay,” he said. 

She sighed.

“You’re sure that’s what you’d decide to do? How can you know how’d you’d feel?” 

“I just know,” she said.

“Huh. That keeps things simple, anyway. It’s your call, though I hope we can at least talk more if it becomes necessary.”

She shrugged.

“Scully, why aren’t you mad, about the bathroom?”

She laughed.

“What?”

“It’s just that I suddenly feel at home in here.”

“Scully, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to scare you. I’m glad you came over.”

“Even though I brought my wrecking ball?”

“Yeah. It’s a nice distraction.” 

“Is that all?”

“No,” she said. “Even though it’s been an unmitigated disaster, you’re good company Mulder. And I didn’t realize it, but I needed some company.”

“Well, it won’t happen again,” he said. 

“That might be for the best.”

“Huh? Oh, I meant, ah…”

“What?”

“I meant that if by some unfathomable grace you let me take you to bed again, I promise to handle things more responsibly.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding.

“You know I don’t like to be pushy. But does now work for you? Because it’s four in the morning, we don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow, and I’d like a chance to redeem myself. I wasn’t done distracting you yet.” He stood up and offered her his hand.

“No?” she said. She grasped his hand and stood up too. 

“No,” he said. “Not even close.”


End file.
